Latent Learning

She watches her mother button up her coat and leave for the first job of the day

Older sister headed to work

And little brother is too young to understand the word pay

She’s only nine at the time but she understands

The effects that a single parent home has without a man

Daddy sick, but not in that sense

He disappeared and didn’t leave a cent

She prays to the Lord and ask for blessings after she repents

And knows this food on the table is heaven sent

Her tears grow smaller as she grows older

And the taller she gets the more her heart grows colder

She falls into the cycle and has a child

But she was different than her friends she wasn’t running wild

He loved her and she thought she felt the same

But the cold pain in her heart told her a different thing

She pushes his love away along with his money

He started saying “Money isn’t an object”, She just laughed like it was funny

She continues to work with her nails deep in the dirt with the same old shirt that she wiped her tears of yesterday with, along  WITH the pain AND the hurt

And with both of their income she can fulfill that Christmas list plus some

But she can do it on her own

She doesn’t need a man ,  for this

Thanks to latency, Momma helped her to understand

How to survive in the world without a man

© Bre’Ana S. Gates

The Final Plateau

Reached a new level, a higher a plateau

Confused from here, but I know where to go

There is only one way to escape my lows

To escape the pain and negotiate my woes

Let the truth be told

All I need to do is pray

Thank the lord for waking me up to see another day

And thank the lord for making a way

But sometimes I shake my head in dismay

Saying why me? Why must I be lead astray

Why must I be the one to sit on the sun and feel the heat

Watching the world as it crumbles beneath my feet

Why must my senses work with the stench that the earth seeps

Through the cracks of the clubs, bars and pubs

Why must I be the one to feel the wrath

When I try to run to and reach what is almost in my grasp

I knew this feeling was not going to last, once I reached this plateau

This new level of happiness lasted for a second

I guess that’s what I get for second guessing.. myself that is

But from on in the words of that one rapper who seems to have it all “ima handle my biz”

Maybe then I can reach the plateau of wiz or the caliber of jay z

By the sounds of this you may think im crazy

But im sorry, im far from lazy

And I refuse to be last

I refuse to suffer from famine of the mind

Quality education

I will take, and nurture as if it was all mines

And I will surpass, and outlast those who doubt

And once I reached  the mountain top

I will feel complete

knowing that I am everything, except for weak

© Bre’Ana S. Gates